timorous
/ˈtɪm(ə)rəs
/adjective
Showing or suffering from nervousness or a lack of confidence: a timorous voice...
- There is still a strong impression that the party's political approach remains timorous and lacks creativity when it comes to figuring out new responses to old problems.
- Girls, allegedly timorous and lacking in confidence, now outnumber boys in student government, in honor societies, on school newspapers, and in debating clubs.
- Eileen wants a man with ‘a nice face, kind eyes and a gentle voice,’ but can only break out of her meek and timorous shell in her fantasies.
Synonyms
easily frightened, lacking courage, fearful, apprehensive, faint-hearted;
trembling, quaking, cowering, weak-kneed;
shy, diffident, bashful, self-effacing, shrinking, unassuming, unassertive, reserved, retiring, reticent, quiet, timid, nervous, modest, demure, coy, meek, humble
informal wimpish, sissy, yellow, yellow-bellied, chicken, gutless, trepidatious
archaic poor-spirited, recreant
Derivatives
timorously
/ adverb ...- It's their actions that send our hands flying to our eyes, he says, and our need to understand their motives that then gives us the courage to peep timorously through our fingers.
- ‘I wanna give you one of these, Chester,’ he said, and timorously gave him a copy of his book.
- The Cold War and the nuclear threat got us into the habit of timorously cowering at the prospect of any great action.
timorousness
- This startling performance was followed by the even greater upheaval of 1838 when he gave an address to the Harvard Divinity School that was a religious counterpart to his trashing of scholarly timorousness and convention.
- I note that she herself falls short of recommending specific books or topics, and thus can be accused of the same timorousness that she ascribes to the text writers.
- Chaos was beginning to overtake the townships, as children, outraged by the timorousness of their parents, seized the initiative themselves.
Origin
Late Middle English (in the sense 'feeling fear'): from Old French temoreus, from medieval Latin timorosus, from Latin timor 'fear', from timere 'to fear'.